The present invention concerns a water tower consisting of an erect main body, a water channel and a means for pumping water into the channel, which acts as a water storage of the tower.
At present, to create the required pressure in the water distribution network, a structure is employed in which a reservoir constituting a safety storage of water is elevated to a height of several tens of meters above the consumption level. Such structures are often massive in appearance and dominate the landscape of the area. A reservoir like this may have a volume of e.g. a million liters, which means that the water in it weighs a million kg. This imposes very strict requirements on the structure of the reservoir itself, its support and the groundwork. Moreover, since the reservoir is built at an elevated level, it is subject to the effects of the weather, which means that insulation of the reservoir is a problem in cold countries, where the water in the reservoir must be protected against freezing in winter. In most cases, small electric pumps are used for filling the reservoir. The water pressure is created by the height of the tower, and the larger reservoir acts as a safety storage. It is estimated that a full reservoir of water will last e.g. half a day if the consumption is normal. During this time, the pressure in the network falls by 0.5-1 bar, depending on the case (i.e. if the electric pumps are inoperative).
The invention is based on the application to water tower structures of the physical fact that the internal, i.e. hydrostatic pressure of a fluid is only dependent on the difference of height between the point of measurement and the free surface of the fluid, which in this case means the difference of height between the consumption level and the water surface in the tower. In other words, the pressure does not depend on the amount of water in the reservoir, but only on the level of the water surface. It follows that the same pressure can be created e.g. by using a pipe of a small diameter, even just a few centimeters, in which the water is raised to the required level of height.